


bending the light connecting you to me

by nirav



Series: a brighter forecast, where new winds will blow [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: christmas in a safehouse, far from home and all alone
(lucy is on a mission, and alex is concerned)





	

_oh, i swim in a violet sea_  
_but i’m bending the light connecting you to me_  
 _so write a lettre de marque and see_  
 _if this dark matter heart can bleed out right_

Lucy has been camped out in a safehouse in Montana for three weeks with her team-- three intelligence analysts, six Army Rangers, and a biological engineer that pales in capability to Alex Danvers-- when her phone rings.  She’s half asleep at a desk with a stack of documents they’d managed to siphon out of a CIA computer based on a Cadmus lead and she jerks upright, one hand going to her sidearm, at the sound of her phone ringing.

It’s a protected line, that phone, to be used for emergencies only.  Barely anyone except her family has it.

“Hello?”

There’s a moment of staticky quiet before a hesitant _“Lucy?  Is that you?”_ comes across.

“Alex?”

“Yeah.” A cough comes from Alex’s side of the line, the not-really a cough that she rasps out whenever she’s nervous, and Lucy moves her free hand away from her gun.

“What’s up?  Do you need--”

“I’m okay,” Alex says.  “Everyone is okay.”

“Oh.”  Lucy slumps back in her chair and rubs at her forehead.  

“I just--” Alex starts and stops, and Lucy props her chin in her hand, waiting quietly.  “I wanted to check in.  See how you are.”

“Oh,” Lucy says again.  “Right.  We’re following a lead, got a safehouse and are making some progress.  You guys taking down Cadmus’ operations in National City put a dent in their security and we were able to piggyback off of some of the comms metadata from Lillian Luthor’s facilities to--”

“Lucy,” Alex says.  There’s a crack in her voice that Lucy assures herself is the static on the phone line.  “How are you?”

Lucy blinks at the empty room around her.  The safehouse has three rooms and one is full of cots with her sleeping team members, one has the sentry on lookout, and one has her, alone at a desk, trying to piece together fragments of intel into something workable.  They’ve been at the same safehouse for nearly a month and haven’t interacted with any people outside of their team except for at the grocery store two towns over.  

She hasn’t spoken to her family in almost six months.

“I’m okay,” she says after a long moment.

“Are you sure?”

Lucy takes a slow breath in, holding it for long seconds, until her chest starts to ache, differently and more acutely than it did at the long empty days she’s spent without her family.  They’ve never been close, but they’re still family, and she’s thrown herself into an assignment with no end in sight and hasn’t seen them in half a year.

“It’s weird,” she says.  “I haven’t talked to my parents or Lois in nearly six months.  I used to go longer than that without talking to them, we were never a family like yours is, but I just-- it’s weird.”

“You miss them,” Alex says.

“Yeah.”  Lucy rubs at her eyes.  “But it’s worth it, you know?  These people, they’re just-- Cadmus is such a huge problem, and they’re so powerful, so it’s worth it.  I knew that going into this.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be tired,” Alex says.  

“How’re you?” Lucy says, clearing her throat and pushing the conversation pointedly away from her family.  “Did that Maggie girl sort her shit out?”

Alex coughs again, the nervous raspy clearing of her throat that’s so familiar, and Lucy smiles into the empty room around her.

“That sounds like a yes,” Lucy says.  “Good.”

“We’re--figuring things out,” Alex says.  

“That sounds like code for something.”

“Not-- oh my God, you’re such a pain,” Alex says.  Lucy smiles widely and leans back in her chair, kicking her feet up onto her desk.  “We just--I have to--”

“Do tell,” Lucy drawls.

“She doesn’t know about Kara,” Alex rushes out, quiet and uneven.  “And I don’t know if I want her to know.”

“Oh.” Lucy picks at a loose thread on the sleeve of her sweater.  “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says with a sigh.  “It’s not that she would react poorly to it, or that I don’t trust her, I think, I just don’t know how I feel about it.”

“What does Kara think?”

Alex laughs quietly.  There’s a shuffling from her side of the line and she lets out a quiet breath, as if settling more comfortably in her chair, and Lucy wiggles a bit more comfortably into hers as well.  

“You know how she is, she’s ready to just tell her anyways.  She’s always ready to tell basically everybody.  She hates lying.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Lucy says.  “She’s terrible at it.”

“Yeah,” Alex echoes.  “I’m just not sure I want to keep bringing people into this.  If that makes sense.  Especially not--” She cuts herself off, and Lucy raises an eyebrow.

“Especially not what?”

“Someone I’m dating,” Alex mumbles.  “What if it ends badly?”

“Look, Danvers, you’ve got pretty good judgment,” Lucy says. She pulls harder at the thread on her sleeve, biting down on the inside of her cheek to buy a moment before she speaks.  The thread starts to unravel the cuff of her sleeve.  “And are a good judge of character.  If you like this girl, this much, and she likes you?  Chances are she’s not going to be the type to dox your superhero sister if you guys break up.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, the word coming out as a sharp exhale.  “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,’ Lucy says, head tilted back and smile aimed at the ceiling.  Her stomach aches, maybe because she hasn’t eaten in hours and maybe because she’s looking at a cracked safehouse ceiling but seeing Alex Danvers, shoulders squared and posture strong under tactical gear and the weight of carrying one of the strongest heroes in the world on her back, as she talks about dating a girl who isn’t Lucy Lane.

“Shut up,” Alex mutters.  “Anyways.  Not why I called.  I just wanted to--”

“Check in,” Lucy says.  She focuses on one of the cracks in the ceiling, counting the turns and angles in the plaster instead of imagining the crease in Alex’s forehead or the way she always raises her eyebrows when Lucy interrupts her.  “Right.”

“Do you need anything?  Does your team need anything?  How big is your team even?  Who’s handling your supply line?”

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me, Danvers,” Lucy says.

“Lucy, please,” Alex says quietly.  “Let me help.”

Lucy’s whole body pulls tighty and her chest aches under the pressure.  “We’re doing okay,” she says after a hesitation.  “I promise.”

“You shouldn’t have to be out there alone,” Alex says.  “You don’t have to do this by yourself.  We can pull together a relief team, get you some time at home to rest.”

“We’re okay,” Lucy says again.  “This whole team knew what they were getting into when they signed up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Even if I wasn’t, the DEO doesn’t have the flexibility to do what we’re doing.  The team is mostly military but we’re operating under a different jurisdiction and a different authority.  If we weren’t then I would have pulled a team from the DEO instead, given the background.”

“Is that supposed to make me less concerned?”

“I’m okay, Alex.  We’re okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Lucy says.  She bites on the inside of her cheek.  “Actually, can you do me a favor?”

“Absolutely,” Alex says quickly.  “We have increased funding since the president became more involved through alien amnesty, I can get you an army if you need it.”

“Not that kind of favor,” Lucy says.  “Can you just-- I know you don’t get along, but can you call my dad and tell him I’m okay?  He can tell my mom and Lois.  I just want them to know that I’m okay.”

“Of course,” Alex says.  Her voice is heavy and even, just like it was when Lucy found her drunk in a bar, just like it was when she was resigned to her arrest, like when she’d left with J’onn the first time to try and find her father and left her sister and her good name behind.  “I’ll let him know.  Do you want me to tell him anything specific?”

“Just that I’m okay,” Lucy says.  “And that I love them all.”

“Okay,” Alex says.  She takes a loud, slow breath in, the sound crackling over the phone line. “It’s Christmas, you know that?  They’ll like hearing from you on Christmas.”

“It is?”  Lucy pulls the phone away from her ear and looks at the date on the screen.   _12:21 AM_ and _December 25_ blink up at her.  “Oh.”

“Merry Christmas, Lucy,” Alex says.  Lucy smiles up at the ceiling again and closes her eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Alex.”  

“It’s late,” Alex says after a moment.  “Or at least, it’s late here.  I don’t know where you are.  But make sure you get enough sleep, okay?  You can’t run your team if you’re sleep deprived.”

“Yes ma’am, Agent Danvers, ma’am,” Lucy says.  “Take care of yourself, too.”

“Sure thing, major,” Alex says, and Lucy can feel her eyeroll through the phone.  “Bye, Lucy.”

“Bye, Alex.”

The line goes dead after a few seconds, and Lucy stays at her desk for another hour, staring up at the ceiling alone.

 

* * *

 

The phone beeps ten hours later, waking Lucy from a nap slumped over the desk.  It’s an encrypted message and a series of instructions that she can’t decipher initially.  She’s about to give up on it when a familiar piece of code jumps out at her, a series of numbers that break down to the GPS coordinates of familiar locations-- the DEO base, the CatCo building, a bar near Alex Danvers’ apartment-- and she plugs it into a decryption program on her laptop.

There are two video files that decrypt first, one more still in process, and she opens the first one.  A recording of her parents flickers into view, together and speaking to her from half a continent away.  

“Agent Danvers indicated that she had a secure way to get a message to you,” her father says gruffly.

“We love you, Lucy, so much,” her mother says, smiling sadly at the camera.  “I’m so proud of you.”

The other file is from Lois. Lucy covers her mouth, a sharp sting pushing at her eyes as she replays the videos twice before the last one decrypts.

It’s Alex, and Kara and James and Winn and J’onn and Susan, waving cheerily from the DEO command center.  Susan is wearing a Santa hat, and Kara an elf hat, the garish green clashing with the more muted colors of her suit, and Winn has a headband with reindeer antlers propped sloppily on his head.  Even J’onn smiles from his somber posture in the back of the group as Kara starts singing _We Wish You a Merry Christmas_.

The video ends with Alex picking up the laptop to turn off the camera, filling most of the screen and saying a soft _“Merry Christmas, Lucy,”_ and _“Don’t forget to change the encryption on that phone tomorrow,”_ before turning it off.  

Lucy stares at the blank screen for long minutes.  She clears her throat loudly into the empty room she’s working in once again, wipes at her eyes, and pushes to her feet.  Deliberate steps carry her into the room they’re using as a barracks, where her team is quietly cleaning weapons and reviewing intel.

“It’s Christmas, guys,” she says.  “We’re going to go find something for Christmas dinner, together, and we’re going to come back here and everyone is going to call their families.”

There’s two feet of snow on the ground outside and the only thing open in any of the towns nearby is a truly terrible Chinese restaurant, but they order enough to have three days’ worth of leftovers and go back to the safehouse full and happier than they’ve all been in months, and Lucy resets the encryption on her emergency phone so her team members can cycle through it, calling home one by one.

 

 


End file.
